West Virginia station group manages traffic, billing with Harris Broadcast software

11/17/2011

Looking to simplify its administrative processes and help its stations identify new revenue opportunities, West Virginia Media Holdings has installed an integrated media software system from Harris (www.harris.com) at eight of its television stations serving four U.S. markets.

WOWK-TV in the Charleston-Huntington market transitioned to Harris media software in October. The remaining stations in the markets of Wheeling/Steubenville, Beckley/Bluefield and Clarksburg/Morgantown will follow soon.

Harris said the system provides each market with a business software platform for traffic, billing and advertising sales that will simplify operations and help the independent broadcast group generate new revenue.

West Virginia Media Holdings is transitioning to Harris from a business software system that relied on separate platforms for traffic and billing, and broadcast advertising sales. The integration of Harris OSi-Traffic (traffic and billing) and OSi-AdConnections (advertising sales) simplifies business operations in all four West Virginia Media Holdings markets, three of which operate more than one station from a centralized facility.

Charlie Dusic, chief financial officer for West Virginia Media Holdings, said that the single-platform Harris media software system was an ideal match for their operation, noting that all eight stations interconnected and often worked together.

"We have many clients that advertise across multiple markets, so we do a lot of crossmarket selling and reporting," said Dusic, adding that he expects that the integrated OSi system will make it easier for his company to incorporate new or nontraditional revenues beyond traditional broadcast TV, and develop an "one-bill-for-all-services" approach for the company's advertisers.

"The overall goal is to become more efficient across our operation by reducing manual processes and making the business side more straightforward for our clients," he said. "The Harris solution provides a set of tools — from presentation through ordering and final billing — that our stations did not have before."